Scottish Power - Default on my girlfriends credit file

[flashguru]

Hi All,

 

Essentially, we moved into a brand new set of apartments (rented accommodation) and lived there for a year and then moved out.

 

We never received any correspondence from Scottish Power, we never signed up with scottish power, we presumed that suppliers would be in place for us and we would hear from them shortly after moving in. We did, British Gas, so we setup an account with them for what we thought was duel fuel (gas and electricity) and paid a direct debit every month, happy days.

 

Over a year after leaving this apartment, we received a letter from a debt collection agency at our new address, on the letter it said to a call a number and didn't provide any other details. I called the number and was told they had found me and i must pay for a years worth of electricity at our previous address, i asked them to provide me a bill, they did, we called up again and paid it after realising they had been supplying us our electricity and british gas were supplying the gas. We didn't pay a settlement figure (a discounted amount) we paid the full amount so it wouldn't affect our credit file. We never signed anything to become a customer of scottish power and they never reported anything on either of our credit files for over 2 years while we were supposedly a customer. Then suddenly 6 months after paying the debt, they posted a default on my girlfriends credit file and the amount still says not settled. They never sent us a notice of default, nor did we ever give them permission to access our credit file, so how can they just do this? and how can i get it removed as it is incorrect and the account was technically never in default.

 

I presume i should do a SAR to see all the details about our account and find out when they actually supposedly sent us a notice of default or a letter to say we hadn't paid a bill etc... with that, i can then prove they are incorrect and have it removed.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Hi welcome to CAG,

 

I expect you information will have been passed to the utility companies when you rented the apartment, also details of the service in place are usually supplied with the tenany agreement, this is where their ''permission to report to the CRAs will have arisen, however that is a very minor point compared to the unfair placing of a default entry after the account had been cleared.

Your way forward here is to raise a formal complaint with the Data Controller of Scottish Power, set out all that has occurred and demand the removal of the default entry from ALL credit reference files as this will have been reported to all 3 of the main agencies.

 

Your GF can place a notice of dispute on all CRA files by phone.

 

May also be a good idea to state that this matter will be reported to the Information Commissioners Office an the Office of Fair Trading as this is unfair practice.

[ScottishPower Company Rep]

Flashguru if you e-mail details to [email protected] (no spaces) we will take a look for you. Thanks David